Academic and community investigators conducting community-engaged research (CEnR) are often met with challenges when seeking Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval. This scoping review aims to identify challenges and recommendations for CEnR investigators and community partners working with IRBs. Peer-reviewed articles that reported on CEnR, specified study-related challenges, and lessons learned for working with IRBs and conducted in the United States were included for review. Fifteen studies met the criteria and were extracted for this review. Four challenges identified (1) Community partners not being recognized as research partners (2) Cultural competence, language of consent forms, and literacy level of partners; (3) IRBs apply formulaic approaches to CEnR; & (4) Extensive delays in IRB preparation and approval potentially stifle the relationships with community partners. Recommendations included (1) Training IRBs to understand CEnR principles to streamline and increase the flexibility of the IRB review process; (2) Identifying influential community stakeholders who can provide support for the study; and (3) Disseminating human subjects research training that is accessible to all community investigator to satisfy IRB concerns. Findings from our study suggest that IRBs can benefit from more training in CEnR requirements and methodologies

We use rich IRI household- and individual-level data sets to examine the relationships between heart disease and type 2 diabetes with alcohol consumption. We control for a wide variety of potential confounders, including diet quality and lifestyle choices. Beer has long been studied in related literature to ambiguous outcomes. We explore the role of beer consumption in detail by separating craft beer from macrobeer and imported beer. The results indicate that most alcohol types could have protective effects against heart disease and diabetes, with the strongest effects occurring for craft beer and wine. Treating beer as a single, homogenous category in health studies likely leads to measurement error. (JEL Classifications: D12, I12, R20, L66, P36)

A key organizational decision for retailers is whether to self-distribute or rely on a wholesaler-supplied network and yet little is known about the impact of this strategic choice on store-level productivity. We estimate a stochastic frontier model for food retailers that accounts for selectivity effects linked to the choice of distribution strategy. We find that adoption of data-sharing technologies has a positive impact on store-level gross margins of stores in self-distributing chains. Technical inefficiency among U.S. food retailers leads to a gross margin that is around $5,000 less for a conventional food retailer and about $7,670 less for a supercenter.

Agricultural policymakers place increasing emphasis on developing efficiency measures for organic producers in order to evaluate regulatory strategies and evolving organic market conditions. We develop technical efficiency measures for U. S. organic farmers using a stochastic production frontier. Farm decisions about acquiring and managing organic soil materials from on-farm and local sources are incorporated into the technical efficiency measure. Productivity differences between newer entrants to organic farming and more experienced producers are estimated in order to isolate the impact of learning and management expertise on farm-level technical efficiency.

The Internet may reduce constraints on a farmer's ability to receive and manage information, regardless of where the farm is located or when the information is used. Using a count data estimation procedure, this study attempts to examine the key farm, operator, regional, and household characteristics that influence the number of Internet applications used by farm households. Findings indicate that educational level of the farm operator, farm size, farm diversification, off-farm income, off-farm investments, and regional location of the farm have a significant impact on the number of Internet applications used.

Competition from new store formats including supercenters, warehouse clubs, and mass merchandisers has emerged as a major threat to traditional grocery chains. A primary objective of this paper is to understand how the store-level performance is related to the workforce composition of full-time and part-time employees chosen by the food retailer along with benefits and incentives provided to employees. The elasticity of complementarity for food retailers measures how changes in store size affect use of full-time and part-time employees. Larger store size increases the marginal value of labor, and firm hiring decisions shift to expanded use of part-time employees.

An indirect utility model is employed for measuring farmers’ willingness to voluntarily accept yield losses for a reduction in environmental risk by decreasing pesticide use. Results support the hypothesis that farmers have self-described risk perceptions that enable them to make assessments of risk-yield tradeoffs. Policies designed to encourage and assist farmers making voluntary pesticide reductions can result in environmental risk reduction.

A generalized Heckman model of purchase decisions incorporating perceived consumer quality attributes, ease of purchase, and familiarity with marketing outlets as factors influencing pecan purchases is estimated. Marketing efforts that encourage consumers to expand expenditures on nut products increase both the probability of pecan purchases and the amount purchased. Consumers who use all types of nuts in a wider variety of foods tend to purchase pecans more frequently. A diverse set of marketing outlets provides consumers with convenient sources for purchasing pecans and has a significant influence on the probability of pecan purchases but not the amount of pecans purchased.

We evaluate agricultural bank management performance, focusing on the impacts of interstate banking laws on productivity change. The generalized Malmquist productivity index decomposes productivity change into technological change, technical efficiency change, and change in scale economies. While managerial productivity rose from 1982 to 1991, states that adopted the most liberal interstate banking laws experienced the greatest improvement in productivity. Large agricultural banks were more efficient in states that had more liberalized interstate banking laws while small agricultural banks fared better in states with more restrictive laws.

Survey evidence from U.S. organic farmers is evaluated to identify the factors influencing effectiveness ratings of cooperative extension advisors by organic farmers. A nonlinear logit model is specified for the ratings provided by organic producers, and critical demographic and management factors that influence the ratings are identified. The impact of the organic farmers' status in transitioning to organic production is highlighted. The results indicate that part-time, newer adopters of organic farming methods are more likely to rate extension service providers as effective providers of information. Scenarios to predict extension effectiveness when interacting with specific groups of organic farmers are developed.

We study the demand by organic farmers for technical advice using a quantile regression for the demand of organic farmers for consultations with private information providers. There is substantial heterogeneity in the impact of critical explanatory variables on consultations of organic farmer. Larger farm size has a positive effect on contacts, but the effect is absent for the highest number of consultations. Internet use has a positive marginal effect on visits to private information providers across each quantile, suggesting that expanded efforts to deliver programs through web-based resources are a useful investment for information providers.

We develop measures of technical and allocative efficiency of producers in marketing certified organic products. A stochastic output distance frontier and the associated revenue share equations are estimated using comprehensive U.S. data on certified organic producers. Farm-level measures of technical efficiency are calculated and factors that enhance performance are identified. Factors that systematically influence allocative efficiency are assessed. The revenue mix of organic producers is systematically inefficient as both male and female producers rely too heavily on revenue from organic markets relative to conventional outlets.

Quantum simulations of oxygen incorporation at a Σ5 grain boundary in yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ), a common solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) electrolyte, show that the incorporation energy is reduced compared with YSZ with no grain boundaries. The simulation results are supported by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) measurements conducted on a single crystalline YSZ substrate with nanogranular interlayered YSZ. EIS results showed that single crystalline YSZ membranes with nanogranular surface (i.e., high grain boundary densities) exhibit small electrode impedances than the reference single crystalline YSZ. The 20-nm-thick nanogranular YSZ interlayer was fabricated by atomic layer deposition and the performance for SOFCs with nanograined interlayer was increased by factor of 2 at operating temperatures between 350 and 450 °C.

We describe a near perfect broad band absorber based on a laterally nanostructured multilayer material. We present calculations of the structure that demonstrates over 99% absorption of the 500 K black body spectrum. We also show the ability to manufacture an anti-reflective layer using a nanostructured metamaterial which allows us to tailor the index of refraction using effective medium theory. The absorber can be adapted for use in any frequency range and any source type. These materials may have applications in energy harvesting and scattered light control.